Impact on daily life

UK. 27^th January
Health experts say there will be more people dying
The figures are coming down but it is very slow.  Yesterday, they say only 20 thousand new cases.  There are still 37 thousand people in hospital.   Hospitals say the treatment is getting better. Good news – Over 6 million people have had the vaccine.    It will take time … then the vaccine programme makes a big impact. 
There are other effects of the pandemic
Unemployment has risen to over 5% of people. Because of the virus, there are huge numbers of people losing their jobs.  Shops, restaurants and lots of offices were closed down.  Over one million people are out of work.  There are nearly 10 million people on furlough.  We are not sure how many will go back to work.
Another big effect – hospital operations have been cancelled.  Over 4 million people are on waiting lists for treatment – cancer, transplants, knee and hip operations.  There are over 192 thousand people who have been waiting for more than a year.  And of course, more people are dying because of this.  They say there are 15% more deaths than usual.
And then schools are closed so children and students are missing out and this will have a big effect for years in future.
There is a backlog in court cases. At the moment, there are 54 thousand court cases in a waiting list.  The Labour Party are having discussions to see if the jury can be reduced from 10 people to 7 people.  They say this would be like wartime.  This would allow more trials to happen.  At the moment murder and robbery cases may be waiting 4 years for a trial.